Concrete dowels are embedded into joints between adjacent slabs of concrete to prevent vertical displacement between the slabs to maintain a smooth pavement surface and increase the strength of the concrete in the region of the joint. While the dowels are provided to prevent excessive vertical displacement between the slabs, they may be designed to allow a small amount of horizontal separation and lateral displacement between the slabs to relieve internal stress to accommodate drying shrinkage and thermal expansion and contraction of the slabs. This permits a normal amount of slab movement to prevent excessive cracking while still maintaining a smooth top surface of the pavement. In road construction, a series of dowels is typically installed at each expansion joint between adjacent sections or slabs of pavement.
In concrete road construction, a long structure known as a dowel basket is often used to hold a line of dowels in place at the edge of a section of pavement before the slab is poured. The basket positions each dowel so that half of the dowels will be embedded in the concrete slab to be poured, with the other half to be embedded in the adjacent slab to be poured next. An expansion joint is typically formed into the joint or cut into the dried concrete above the dowel basket at each expansion joint. The road is thus constructed section after section, and mile after mile, with a line of dowels held in place by a dowel basket embedded into the concrete at each expansion joint.
Constructing a road in this manner requires the dowel baskets to be continually constructed and made available at the construction site as section after section, and mile after mile, of road is poured. In conventional road construction, the dowel baskets are welded together at a welding shop and then transported, typically by truck, to the construction site. For a long road construction project, a series of welding jobbers may be contracted along the route as the road is constructed. Dowel basket fabrication can be a significant logistical challenge and a major cost factor in road construction. At times, dowel basket fabrication may become the critical path item, causing the construction crew to sit idle waiting on dowel basket delivery before road construction project can continue. As a result, there is a persistent need for cost effective solution to dowel basket manufacturing to facilitate concrete road construction.